Old stuff coming along with Lenny

"Markus R." Keßler · External Since: Apr 29, 2009 Posts: 5

Dear group,

just got my 5.0.1 box running after all that trouble with serial mice and
before swithcing to a USB type.

But there's still womething strange with the installation:

For isntance there's "K Snakerace" which was last delivered with Mandrake
10.1 in 2004(!) and since then there's no such port any more for newer
systems.

But, what's really surprising me is, that Lenny installed "Open Office"
version 2.4(!) though on my other machines there's Open Office version
3.x running.

What's going on here? Did I misconfigure something?

Best regards,

Markus

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Marin Schnitkemper · External Since: Mar 02, 2009 Posts: 6

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"Markus R." Keßler · External Since: Apr 29, 2009 Posts: 5

Am Sat, 23 May 2009 22:55:33 +0200 schrieb Marin Schnitkemper:

> · Markus R. Keßler <dimke.fax.RemoveThis@uni.de> schrieb:
>
>> But, what's really surprising me is, that Lenny installed "Open Office"
>> version 2.4(!) though on my other machines there's Open Office version
>> 3.x running.
>
> OpenOffice-3.0 was released after Lenny has been set to the freezing
> state. Version 2.4 was at this time the latest stable release and
> version 3 still under development.
>
>> What's going on here? Did I misconfigure something?
>
> No, just the advantage of a stable distribution Wink

>
> To get the latest OpenOffice release anyways, add the backport
> repository :
>
> | # Backports
> | deb http://www.backports.org/debian/ lenny-backports main contrib
> non-free
>
> But keep in mind that these are inofficial packages and usualy not made
> for a stable environment.

Hi Martin,

thanks for the info. Well, the first thing that was puzzling me was to
saw that "Supertux" in Lenny is the same release as on my Mandrake 10.1
machine, but this OS is from 2004 Smile

Also, in my understanding there are always bugfixes needed for office
applications that provide script support like Write or Calc to make them
less vulnerable against macro viruses - even Micro$oft offers "hotfixes"
when new security holes appear. So in my understanding it would be better
to keep these applications up to date?!

Best regards,

Markus

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John Hasler · External Since: Dec 04, 2004 Posts: 192

Martin writes:
> To get the latest OpenOffice release anyways, add the backport repository :

> | # Backports
> | deb http://www.backports.org/debian/ lenny-backports main contrib non-free

> But keep in mind that these are inofficial packages and usualy not made
> for a stable environment.

They are created by Debian maintainers and the certainly are made for a
stable environment.
--
John Hasler

John Hasler · External Since: Dec 04, 2004 Posts: 192

Markus writes:
> Well, the first thing that was puzzling me was to saw that "Supertux" in
> Lenny is the same release as on my Mandrake 10.1 machine, but this OS is
> from 2004

Once a Debian release is released as Stable it remains stable. That means
that packages in it are not replaced just because a new upstream version
comes out. Those go first into Unstable and then to Testing, where they
stay until the next release. If you must be on the bleeding edge upgrade
to Testing or Unstable. If you want to run Stable with just a few current
packages install them from backports.org.

> Also, in my understanding there are always bugfixes needed for office
> applications that provide script support like Write or Calc to make them
> less vulnerable against macro viruses - even Micro$oft offers "hotfixes"
> when new security holes appear. So in my understanding it would be better
> to keep these applications up to date?!

Security fixes are backported to Stable. Patched packages are available at
<http://security.debian.org>. Periodic point releases are made
incorporating these patched packages into the Stable repository. You
should subscribe to the debian-security-announce mailing-list at
<http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/>.
--
John Hasler

Marin Schnitkemper · External Since: Mar 02, 2009 Posts: 6

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John Hasler · External Since: Dec 04, 2004 Posts: 192

Marin Schnitkemper writes:
> Why are [the packages at backports.org] then not a part of the stable
> distribution and distributed via a backports repository?

Because Stable is _stable_. That means it doesn't change.

--
John Hasler